


Sweater Weather

by giwp



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU Challenge, EreJean was a thing in this au, Fluff, Jean POV, M/M, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 02:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3834490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giwp/pseuds/giwp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a pretentious wank when it comes to a homemade gift from your own momma is punishable by death.... and getting ignored by your best friend and boyfriend.</p><p>Prompt: Where Jean’s mom knits Marco a sweater for Christmas and there’s a cat on it and he loves it but Jean is so embarrassed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweater Weather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acemockingjay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acemockingjay/gifts).



It’s probably the ugliest thing Jean has seen come out of a perfectly wrapped Christmas box. The large red bow, handmade and taped onto the center of the festive green and gold wrapping paper. Jean’s mom always did cash out for the fancier stuff on the holidays. Especially when it came to spending it on Jean’s friends.

But this thing was horrid.

The deep red of the sleeves that would normally contrast perfectly with the dark undertones of the wearer’s skin color ruined beyond recognition by the strong white and contrasting green eyes of the feline knitted into its center. The cat itself didn’t look very happy being on the thing and Jean had to wonder where the inspiration had come from for his mother because surely ol’ Jinae couldn’t have aged to become so bitter with life as the thing on Marco’s chest.

How the hell did a fashion designer’s mother even churn out something this horrid?

Why the hell was his _boyfriend_ of six years wearing the thing with a big, wide smile on his face like he was just given a piece of chocolate and a check for ten million dollars?

“Marco, no.”

“Marco, yes.”

“Marco.”

“Jean.”

“Marco you can’t.”

“Marco I can.”

“ _Marco_. You really can’t.”

“But look how cute it is! It has little butterflies floating around its head.”

“It has fake-ass yarn butterflies sewed into it, yes. Doesn’t mean it looks good in any way.”

“Jean,” Marco pouted, his lower lip jutting out as he pulled on the puppy dog eyes. “Your mom made it for me for Christmas. And she sent it before the holiday week even started. I’m pretty sure she’s expecting me to wear it.”

Jean crosses his arms in front of his chest, his well-fitted shirt and tailored black slacks made customed to his body after years of sporting normal Target jeans for years was a screaming contrast next to Marco’s ridiculous red Christmas sweater over his favorite back pants. Jean lets his eyes roam over his boyfriend’s body as Marco matches his stance, his arms locked at his hips. His socks two different shades of black that makes Jean cringe and look back up at Marco’s face.

He finds the stern face gone soft as a smile breaks through his meager glare over Jean’s shoulder.

Not now Jaeger.

“Eren tell him how cute this sweater is.”

Jean turns around to let the shorter boy into the room, thinking a full view of Marco would get him to join Team Runway and the shock he receives instead leaves him sputtering again and leaning into the doorway both for support and to get as far away as he can from the horror. “Oh. Not you too.”

Eren’s managed to stuff himself into a similar looing sweater, the blue of the thing super vibrant on his dark skin with the horrendous outline of a large mutilated black and white puppy sewn onto it with a mountain/ski resort background to tone it up even more. The thing would give anybody a heart attack with how much was going on in such a small canvas. Something definitely of his mom’s creation.

The course voice of their housemate scratches further into Jean’s patience as he pushes his way into Marco and Jean’s shared bedroom. “I think Marco looks great. What’s up your butt, Kirschstein?”

Jean snaps, his mind racing with colors and puppies and kittens. “It looks ridiculous. Just because mom decided to play a joke on my career doesn’t mean you two need to go along with it. But like it fucking matters, right?”

With a huff, Jean leaves the room and makes his way towards the living room to look for his cell phone. He’s left it somewhere outside in his haste to get out of his work clothes and into the shower before having to drive down home for Christmas dinner. But it was due time for him to check his email and the emptiness of his hands and pockets was unsettling his stomach even more than the sweaters from hell. He moves around the room, unaware of the two pairs of eyes watching him quietly from the doorway until he hears the buzzing of a phone coming from the connecting kitchen.

He turns around and finds Marco staring at him and Eren leaning into a barstool and the kitchen counter with his phone in hand. The silver of his new iPhone 6 shining in the hands of someone who broke the last one he had.

Jean stomps over and snatches the device from Eren’s hand, mumbling something along the lines of “I don’t even know why you were invited” before turning away to click through the phone. Completely unaware of the surprise and hurt on Eren’s face. He doesn’t look up for a second to see how Eren’s face falls as he looks stares at his best friend from high school too busy with typing up a quick email to notice the insult he just said. Eren was pretty much part of the family the day his parents had passed away back in middle school and everyone knew that as fact after the numerous fights that broke out on the campus grounds over the issue but the disregard coming from Jean stung. It stung really hard.

Marco’s the first to speak up in the silence hanging in the room. Something Jean didn’t seem aware of as it created a dense tension over everyone. His voice was stern, surprisingly, and Jean shoots his head up to look at his boyfriend. “Jean. None of us are poking fun at you. Neither your mom, nor Eren and especially not me.”

Jean clicks his tongue against his teeth, a scowl on his face but as he turns to look at Eren for his usual snarky response and finds his best friend with his head turned towards the floor, his eyebrows furrowed, he falters for something to say. “Eren-”

Eren’s head snaps up and turns away to stare at the fridge as he snaps. “It’s just a fucking sweater your mom wanted to give her only son’s friend and boyfriend.” He turns back to look Jean in the eyes, his own eyes never wavering as he stares him down. “This wasn’t meant to be a blow to your ego, you doofus. Your mom – our mom you angry fuck – loves you. And she knows how much you care about us and loves us just as much so she made us something for fucking Christmas. Now I don’t know about you, but Marco and I aren’t about to disrespect the lady – my best friend’s mom and my guardian for most of our teenage years and your boyfriend’s mother-in-law-to-be – by not wearing the dumbass sweater while eating her food. I don’t care what you do tonight but I’ll be Marco’s date to mom’s place if you’re gonna be so high and mighty about your preference, Jean.”

Jean sputters as Eren pushes and walks forward, pressing Jean into the hallway’s walls. He was always taller than Eren but the boy has a fire in his eyes and his entire body tended to act on impulse more than reason when he was lit up and Jean didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Even if he was the damn starter wood for the bonfire known annually as Eren.

Eren walks past him, grabbing Marco’s hand, and turns back with his keys in hand. He drags Marco with him to the front door where their shoes are thrown about ready to be slipped on. No intent to turn around to see if Jean was following them.

Marco goes along, grabbing his coat off the back of the couch and bending down to slip on his shoes as Eren laces up his boots and sticks a black beanie on his head.

They look ridiculous.

Marco’s a runway walker and he looks so… not like one in his clothes while Eren’s switch from button ups and blazers for the blue monstrosity makes zero sense.

The clash of colors and patterns making Jean’s head spin from how stupid they look.

How dumb they look going out to _his_ childhood home to make what kind of impression?

…

To please his mom.

And Jean was so grateful to have them in his life.

“Shit. Wait.”

The two of them pause where Eren’s had hangs off the doorknob – ready to open it – and Marco stands solemnly ready to follow as Jean sprints back to his bedroom.

He rifles through his side of the room where his suitcase was still laid open, still very much full of his dirty clothes from last weekend’s shoot. He moved past the piles of designers while simultaneously unbuttoning his “purple shirt of sex” as Marco like to put it. He throws on a spare white tee shirt as he tosses his shirt onto the growing pile of dirty clothes before he finds what he’s looking for.

Sprinting back into the living room, his hand automatically shutting off the light from years of being accustomed to running out of the house, Jean sticks his head into the slightly too small holes of the black sweater he found stuffed deep in his dresser. It was only there for a couple of days so the wrinkles didn’t make a difference to the designs running across his chest.

He walks into the living room and stands in front of the boys, his arms spread to the sides like he’s ready to take off and fly straight down to hell to shake hands with Thanatos himself as he lets the sweater settle on his lean form.

Eren’s the first to react. His cackling loud enough to get the neighbor’s dog howling with him through the walls of the house and the afternoon sun shining through the front windows.

His mom really did choose the right animal character for Eren’s sweater, Jean thinks to himself.

Marco whispers an “oh my god” before joining Eren with small giggles. Jean blushes at the attention but smiles along with them as he stretches out the bottom hem to look at the figures on his chest.

Santa riding a slumpy horse in a pure black sky. The stenciled knitting of “WHOA HO HO” written into the sweater in bring red, a needed contrast to how dark the whole thing is.

A pretty perfect match for him actually.

Looking around as they all chuckle to themselves, Jean realizes that each of their sweater actually encapsulated them rather well. Marco’s cheery demeanor relevant in the boys knitted into the chest area here and there to rival the attempted cute little kitten and Eren’s dumb dog that was way too adventurous for a four-legged creature was fitting to how Eren’s decisions always led him with a couple sore bruises as return back in high school.

Mom did well.

Grabbing his set of keys and taking Eren’s and tossing them back onto the console table covered in mail and loose scraps of paper and change, Jean leads the way out the door, making sure to shrug on his winter coat and wrap a scarf around his neck before stepping over the threshold.

He steps through inches of snow crushing under the heels of his boots as he listens to the two boys behind him still chuckling to themselves over “the horse on horse-faces chest”.

Har-har.

But Jean smiles to himself, glad that he has a pair of idiots to remind him he really needs to spend some time back on Earth before throwing a tantrum over something so miniscule and irrelevant.

 “C’mon,” he says over his shoulder as he walks up to his car.  The others walk over to their usual places, routine for them after years of living together. “Time to make momma jealous with how good we look.”

“You’re an idiot, Kirschstein. But HELL FUCKING YEAH WE LOOK GREAT!”

Marco chuckles to himself in the passenger seat and Jean starts the drive home.

**Author's Note:**

> For reference: [Marco's Sweater](http://images1.laweekly.com/imager/ugly-christmas-sweaters-cat-edition/u/original/2444161/01_catsweater_lores.jpg) [Eren's Sweater](http://thesweaterstore.com/wp-content/uploads/ugly-christmas-sweater-230271.jpg) [Jean's Sweater](http://www.rustyzipper.com/full/246461.jpg)
> 
> This thing is so fluff. 
> 
> The au idea is from my lovely best friend [Nick](http://acemockingjay.tumblr.com/) and it totally distracted me from my studying all weekend so I finally wrote the thing. 
> 
> Hope you all like it and remember to leave comments and kudos and maybe leave ideas of stuff I should write while I work on other projects and don't prepare for finals
> 
> my tumblr is [mamaarachne](http://mamaarachne.tumblr.com/)


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